The Shoot – Isaiah 11:1-9
A Ruined Kingdom
11 Then I said, ‘For how long, Lord?’ And he answered: ‘
Until the cities lie ruined
Isaiah 6:11
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
Imagine a mighty forest burnt to stumps. This is what God said to Isaiah’s question “how long?“. But the ruin is not final, for He is a promise keeping God, to Abraham and to David. “A king forever from David’s line.”
A Righteous King
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him –
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord –
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
Isaiah 11:1-5
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash round his waist.
Jesus fulfilled all that Isaiah wrote. He delights in the fear of the Lord.
He is perfectly fair, He righteous, faithful and true, He embodies the fear of the Lord.
A Renewed Creation
The wolf will live with the lamb,
Isaiah 11:6-9
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Perfect peace, no more fear, no more conflict, no more evil.
Isaiah did not know when, but John the Apostle later saw it more clearly, when Christ returns: Revelation chapter 21. This is where history is trending.
New International Version – UK (NIVUK)
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
What Isaiah could see, but he didn’t know when.
What we can see, living after Christ’s first coming.
The now and the “not yet”.
